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Abstract
Modern scholars have often judged Raphael's Fire in the Borgo to be a disappointment. It has been criticized for a lack of proportion, narrative, and structural coherence and for its awkward Michelangelesque nudes. However, rather than as a tired pastiche executed by assistants, it might better be understood as Raphael's argument for a new theory of painting derived from the literary texts being produced at the court of Pope Leo X. Specifically, the Fire in the Borgo asks to be evaluated according to Pietro Bembo's new criterion for evaluating a work of literature: Petrarchan pleasantness (piacevolezza) over Dantean gravity (gravità).
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Patricia L. Reilly
Patricia Reilly teaches at Swarthmore College. Her research investigates the relations between pictorial and textual arguments made by painters in cinquecento Italy. She is completing a manuscript entitled “Raphael and Vasari at the Medici Courts and the Italian Pictorial Vernacular” [Department of Art, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pa. 19081–1397, [email protected]].